


The Black Dog

by Aloysia_Virgata



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Depression, F/M, Season/Series 10, revival spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 13:04:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5627608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aloysia_Virgata/pseuds/Aloysia_Virgata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A study of Mulder's depression from Scully's POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Black Dog

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on the following prompt: Could you write a prompt with truthful depiction of Mulder's depression which goes out of control? I'm sure CC just uses this depression as plot device and makes Mulder OK again in ep2. I want to see the real depression to fully understand the split.

“Mulder I’m worried. I’d like you to at least try medication, to see if it helps. You’re not sleeping, you’ve lost weight…I’m not a psychiatrist but as you won’t see another doctor, I’m going on the record as diagnosing depression. Let’s at least get you started on a prescription, okay?”

He shrugged. “Whatever you say, Doc.”

 *

The day William turned thirteen she came home and found Mulder still in bed, gazing at the ceiling. 

“Have you left the house at all?” she asked, tired and heartsick.

He closed his eyes and turned away.

She saw flights to Oregon on the computer screen.

*

His office had a stale smell and the cleaning lady had no wish to tangle with Mulder after last time. Scully, however, had no such compunctions. The floor was carpeted with sunflower shells, wads of paper, and socks. The plant she’d given him was a stale husk, festooned with cobwebs. At least a dozen coffee cups left tiny crop circles along the furniture, his four monitors frosted with dust.

Scully sighed, snapping open a trash bag to gather it all up. Bending to her task, she knocked over his wastebasket. She peered inside when it rattled and saw two months of his pills at the bottom.

*

He was feverish, he likely hadn’t slept in days, and she was grateful to Uber for getting him home alive

“Scully,” he said, pulling out his phone. “Scully I found it, the oil, it was in this place outside Irkutsk, by Lake Baikal –”

She snatched the phone from his hand. “Stop,” she whispered, smoothing her hand over his sweaty hair. “Mulder, my god, look at you. I’ve been worried _sick_.” His eyes were glassy, pupils dilated.

He pushed her hand away. “I’m fine, give me the phone.”

“No. I want you to eat, take a shower, and drink a lot of water.” She chewed her lip, considering a saline drip as she felt his pulse.

“Scully give me the fucking _phone_.” He pushed her roughly that time, smashing their hands into a glass that shattered on the table.

Scully had to tell him he was bleeding.

*

“Stomach bug,” she lied, arriving alone at her mother’s.

Maggie frowned. “I hope it’s nothing serious.”

Scully smiled, shook her head. “He sends his love.”

He hadn’t left his office in days.

*

She was cozy under the blankets and the snow fell like lace outside the window. She loved snow, even after Antarctica, and it made her long for cocoa in front of the fire, for ghost stories and the heat of Mulder’s body

Scully moved closer to him, sliding her hand under his t-shirt to trace the muscles of his back. She tucked her face into the curve of his neck, his jaw enticingly rough. The scent of his skin made her wet.

He hadn’t touched her in so many weeks it had become months but the year was as fresh as the snow outside and she thought maybe, maybe…

Mulder rose from the bed and went downstairs.

*

“I can’t do this,” she said, her voice as steady as she could keep it. “I love you and I want you in my life but I can’t love you enough for both of us. I’m sorry.”

He threw a suction-cup dart at the wall. “Fine, whatever.”

She blinked away tears. “Do you even care that this fixation of yours has such a stranglehold on our very existence that it is killing you in front of me?”

“I care,” he said, his voice hollow. “But I am who I am.”

“This isn’t who you are!” she yelled, her fists balled in frustration.

He shrugged, threw another dart. “If you want to leave, I get it.”

She _didn’t_ want to leave. She wanted to stay and love him until he was well. She wanted to hear him laugh again, to feel his large hands on her waist, to eat leftovers with him at midnight and kiss him in her office at work. She wanted to raise him from the dead again.

But she picked up her bag and she left.

 

 

 

 


End file.
